Thaos Nightwind
Cadet
I'm not going to dwell on this but i've never taken the opp to vent about it. Needless to say there is far more than words will allow to convey the totality of, and this will be my first and last vent (you're welcome). Here is brief summary of my experience of the SWG saga that still reverberates through the MMO comunity for those so interested.
You play a game for, in my case, 2 and a half years. Have characters, two mains that are well established, have homes, guilds, friends et all. Understand that your involvement with a game and the friends you've met after that length of time is *total*. Not to mention the people who played longer that that.
Company does Combat Upgrade (CU) which, if I remember correctly, comes across as an across the board nerf of all weaps and combat skills.
Then a bit later company decides to reduce the number of professions (yours included) from 29 to only 9. Yeah they killed 20 professions implementing a "New Game Experience" (NGE).
You log in to find that you *HAVE* to change professions, you do so only to find that you're now lvl 1 of that profession and have to re-roll your character up to lvl 90 i.e. start all over again along with a new UI and fewer character annimations. Even if your profession didn't see the chopping block you still had to re-roll it.
If you chose to do this your 'reward' [for $15.00 monthlyx30 months+$50.00 cost of game and time invested (lets not even count attachment to friends and gamestyle no matter which game) = $500.00] is a special title prefix of 'Elder' and maybe a few other trinkets. Other than that thanks for your dedication.
Although all the profesions were tough to some degree Jedi had a *REALLY* hard way to go to get there. They had to keep Mastering professions until they hit the randomized four of 29 (memory fading).
The only help they received to know which profession was next was from a mystical "Holocron" which could tell them which one to Master next. *IF* you were lucky enough to acquire them as needed.
As a result of that the market price for one was upwards of 15-30 million as they were very rare. Just like the profession. And every aspiring Jedi needed at least four so you had to grind up an alt profession to earn $$ to try to get them. Now, you can simply click on the profession to become one.
In two and a half years I saw Jedi 3 times. It was a real treat to see one then. So for a lot of people whatever the pricelees 'magic' is that any game developer seeks to incorporate; we had it. That's why its hard for me to find a game that I like and yes; its subjective to my experiences.
You can go over to Vanguard forums and there is a Corbantis Server thread there. It was the people more than anything else. There is no game that you will play for years to come that will not have former SWG people in it that are extremely fond of 'back in the day' because its not like the game fell out of favor over time.
It was simply taken midstream.
Call it "whinning", "remorse", wanting it back etc whatever... we simply were left wondering WTF???
The whole fiasco has become the MMO hallmark earthquake of what *NOT* to do to the illusive 'Trust' of a paying customer base. That alone should objectively tell you something.
There are three things you don't screw with... family, friends and, money. With SWG as pertaining the last two; many lost both.
Today numerous totally empty formerly player run cities dot every planet as a few noobs cluster at the major starports of the staple cities. They complain of the devs not removing these empty shells of SWG's former glory. I'll bet the number of players who merely check in via temporarily restablishing their accounts far outweighs those that are now active.
That's why the seeming empty cities and houses still stand.
There's probably still some fun to be had there but when I checked back it was like trying to ring a few drops of water from a dry towel. I earned enough to go to (what was) the top two active cities Theed and Corellia only to find two empty cantinas; the ramifications of which are ineffable.
"pre CU/NGE" which you may now faintly understand. Well its kind of our way of saying 'Before the f**k up'. lol!! It would be like seeing Heroes Hall members on other forums if this one was suddenly and drastically altered and many "old schoolers" abondoned it. We've seen good times (welcoming new members, in-fighting) and bad (forums were hacked) but we stuck it out. Its a kind of bond.
If you made it this far Thank You for listening. Because that's all i think we really wanted as it seems the agent provocateur of this still reverberating situation didn't/doesn't care one wit; leaving many no place to go and nothing to do but scream a metaphorical and literal 'FOUL' across the MMO landscape!!
There is nothing they can do about what transpired including classic servers and continually changing the forum format starting afresh to lessen the number of old school post. Which they've done for at least the third time since 'It' happened.
And that's about it. *shrug* I've moved on and would not do a classic server (which I saw in the works somewhere) or any other Sony MMO product.
But whether to commiserate or not I will ALWAYS give a shout out to those that were there pre CU/NGE.
That simply will never change.
Tempest/Sunrunner 4ever!!!
